No More Mr. Nice Guy

Recently, I read a book titled No More Mr. Nice Guy. It's an awful title for a book, and the cover doesn't exactly scream, "This is a good read for you, Brandon." Instead, it gives off that creepy alpha male/toxic vibe that usually makes me want to put a book right back on the shelf. I mean, seriously, the tagline is A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life. 😬

However, you know what they say about judging a book by its cover, and I suppose that applies to the title and tagline as well. No More Mr. Nice Guy is a book I wish I had read twenty years ago because much of what Robert Glover discusses inside is something I've needed to hear for a very long time.

The core idea behind No More Mr. Nice Guy, which I'll abbreviate as NMMNG from here on out, is that some men develop what Glover calls "Nice Guy Syndrome." These men learn to believe that if they are agreeable, helpful, undemanding, emotionally controlled, and generally "good," then other people will naturally love them, appreciate them, and eventually give them what they want.

Underneath all of that niceness is often an unspoken contract: If I do everything right for you, you should make me happy.

The problem is that nobody else knows this contract exists. When the expected love, appreciation, affection, or validation doesn't arrive, resentment begins to build. The person is left thinking, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. I've been good. I've been helpful. I've caused no problems. Why am I still unhappy?

You could probably summarize a lot of this by calling it perfectionism, people pleasing, being a "goodist," or whatever other label you want to attach to a life built around not rocking the boat. Basically, these are guys who have a hard time saying no, asking directly for what they need, disappointing other people, or allowing themselves to be seen as difficult.

Glover's theory is that this behavior can begin when a boy grows up and some of his needs are not being met. He may begin to interpret his own feelings, wants, anger, or emotional needs as part of the problem. Somewhere along the way, he develops the belief that who he naturally is might not be enough, so he begins modifying himself in an attempt to remain lovable and to avoid rejection.

The internal message becomes something like, If I can be good enough, easy enough, helpful enough, and cause no problems, people will love me and won't leave me.

That idea hit me particularly hard because it reminded me of something I had encountered a couple of years ago while reading books by Dr. John Sarno. Sarno wrote about what he called "goodist" personalities, people who feel a strong need to be good, responsible, helpful, and accommodating, sometimes at the expense of acknowledging their own anger and frustration. His theory was that these uncomfortable emotions were repressed often and in return, could manifest into physical symptoms.

At the time, the idea was revelatory to me. As I began journaling and dealing with some emotions I had spent years avoiding, I noticed that some of the physical pain I was experiencing began to ease. Since then, I've noticed that the pain occasionally flares back up, and when it does, taking some time to journal and explore what might be going on underneath the surface often seems to help again. That experience has given the idea some credibility in my own mind, regardless of how broadly the theory might apply to anyone else.

So when I started reading Glover's argument that constantly repressing your feelings, putting other people first, avoiding conflict, and trying to keep everyone happy can eventually create resentment and anger, it felt familiar. What really brought everything together for me, though, was his discussion of abandonment and rejection. The behavior isn't necessarily about being unusually kind. Sometimes it is about trying to make yourself so agreeable and useful that nobody will have a reason to reject you and that put a lot of things into perspective.

I'm not going to turn this into a trauma dump or pretend that one self-help book suddenly explained my entire personality. I did, however, find a lot of useful material in NMMNG. Like almost every self-help book I've ever read, it could probably be shorter, and some of the stories and examples overlap more than I would have liked. Still, the underlying ideas connected enough dots for me that I found myself thinking about the book even when I wasn't reading it.

More importantly, it began affecting my behavior almost immediately. By the time I was around forty percent of the way through the book, I sat down with my wife and explained what I had been reading. I talked to her about some of the patterns I was beginning to recognize in myself, but I also explained that recognizing those patterns meant I needed to start changing some things.

Not changing her. Changing me. I needed to acknowledge these fictious contracts I had in my head, that she wasn't even aware of. I needed to remove those from our relationship in order ease my uneasiness. Then I needed to remove them from every relationship that I have.

For me, that means getting better at saying what I actually want instead of hoping someone figures it out. It means saying no sometimes without turning it into a moral crisis. It means allowing someone to be disappointed with me without immediately assuming I've done something wrong. Most importantly, it means accepting that constantly making myself smaller, easier, and more accommodating isn't necessarily kindness. Sometimes it's fear dressed up as kindness.

And that may be the biggest thing I've taken away from No More Mr. Nice Guy so far. The goal isn't to stop being nice. I don't want to become selfish, aggressive, or indifferent to the people around me. The goal is to stop believing that being loved requires me to disappear.